


Making Believe It's You

by shomarus



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 06:13:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14302569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shomarus/pseuds/shomarus
Summary: Although Professor’s voice sounds just as concerned as any other well-meaning girlfriend’s might, Duff wonders how much of it is actual concern and how much of it is annoyance. The more they work together, the more the lines are blurred.





	Making Believe It's You

**Author's Note:**

> idk why everyone's been sleeping on these two but they deserve content and also happiness so uhhh here's a thing. it's definitely not the only thing i'm going to be writing for them because i adore professor scara and doctor duff with all of my tiny gay heart. :')
> 
> thank you for reading!

“You’ve been up for nearly forty-two hours, Duff. You wonder why you can barely remember what you had for breakfast this morning and then you go and pull stunts like this. Honestly…”

Although Professor’s voice sounds just as concerned as any other well-meaning girlfriend’s might, Duff wonders how much of it is actual concern and how much of it is annoyance. The more they work together, the more the lines are blurred.

“It’s an experiment,” she says as though it really were just that and nothing more. “Or at the very least, it will be, once I suss out a suitable topic.” Duff doesn’t take her eyes off of her shaking hands, trembling beakers and puffs of smoke. Her blood sugar is probably low as well—not eating properly would do that. Perhaps it’s unwise of her to continue working herself to nearly four days without a minute of shut-eye but it’s all Duff can do to keep her mind off Professor.

“Yeah, except compromising your health in the name of science is _my_ job, not yours. Something’s up, why don’t you tell me about it?”

“I already told you it was nothing.”

Professor sighs. Duff had never been convincing, not that she’s ever had a reason to brush Professor off like that. No, she’d always been open with her, because that’s what partners were supposed to do, right? It’s only then that Duff realizes that she’d been _too_ open, _too_ forthcoming with emotion.

“Duff…”

For the first time in a while, Professor’s hands brush against Duff’s shoulders.

For the first time in a while, Duff pulls away.

“I don’t get it,” Duff says finally, although with much more frustration than what she wanted to put into her voice. “If you wanted the space so badly, how come you’re trying to get closer?”

And then Professor stares dumbly, as though she didn’t get it.

Duff slams the beakers down on the table. It isn’t like her to get angry. It’s not like her and she hates it and it doesn’t feel nice to be angry but she finds that she can’t stop herself. She’s already too far gone. “ _You_ might be the robotics expert, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know my way around a locked terminal. Do you get it now? Or do I have to go ahead and ‘spell it out for you’, as you might say?”

Professor blinks. “You…”

“Is everything I say incessant prattle to you?” She’s hurt. And now that she’s hurt, she’s irritable. Dramatic. A pain. Just like she said. Duff’s hands are shaking again. “You could have left at any time. Hell, you could have said you hated me from the get-go and I still would have let you use my lab. You knew this! You didn’t need to…” Lead her on? It doesn’t sound right, it doesn’t sound like what Professor had been doing at all. Venting frustration or an admission of lovelessness? “I don’t know. I don’t! I thought that if you had a problem with me you’d talk to me about it.”

Professor’s silence is what gets her the most. How dare she feel guilty. Why not just own up to it, to her own ugly feelings? Duff’s hands clench and unclench. She can feel a stress headache coming up as well—what a joy.

“Well?” Duff continues with an accusatory jab towards Professor’s chest. “You want me to listen? Talk.”

She catches the twitch in Professor’s mouth, the sad twinge that pulls the line into a frown. Something that makes Duff wonder if they’ll have an actual heart-to-heart instead of Professor simply brushing her off as an annoyance (and how she berates herself for not realizing it during those times). Then, “As though you’ve never had any ill thoughts about me?”

“No, never!”

“Never?” There’s an eyebrow raised in suspicion, although the expression on her face is drained of the confidence it once held. She’d been expecting a much different response.

It only serves to reaffirm Duff’s words, “Never.”

And it’s true. Duff wonders if that’s the problem, if because of her eagerness to idolize Professor and see zero faults in her that this happened at all. “Be… Because I love you,” she manages with a sigh. Defeat. Her fingers won’t stop trembling, though. “And maybe it’s blind love and maybe it’s—”

“No, no. Don’t talk, you’re right. You’re right and I’m an idiot,” Professor interjects with a sigh of her own. It’s when her hand combs through her own hair that Duff catches sight of the dark circles under her own eyes. Professor is also defeated. Her hands form a series of gestures before they rest in the air, dazed. “It’s… how do I say this? I wrote those things because I was frustrated. And I didn’t think you would see them so I thought it was fine, but seeing you like this… It hurts. Because I hurt you.”

Duff shrugs. “I don’t know why I didn’t take the hint earlier.” The spunk from earlier is gone and instead, she feels deflated. A sad little wasteland pooch begging for scraps, little vys for affection and a hand that feeds. “You never act like you want me around.”

“I _do_ , but I—” Professor pauses mid-sentence, “I do want you around. Perhaps not every waking moment of my life, but I want you around. I want you to be with me where I go, that’s why I invite you on field expeditions.”

“But you know I’m not into fieldwork.”

“I know,” she nods along. She pauses for a small beat. “... It’s nice, sometimes. Out by the edge of Boston, there’s a little lake. If you can mind the occasional skeleton, it looks like a nice spot for a short picnic.”

There’s silence before it’s broken by a bark of laughter on Duff’s end. “You’re not subtle at all, you know that?” It’s funny to her, the sudden rise and fall of emotion and how just an awkward implication at a desire to spend time together could raise her spirits so quickly. “We’ll call it a date then.”

For good measure, and perhaps because it feels appropriate, Duff cups Professor’s face and pulls her into a small kiss. Professor grins for the most fleeting of moments. Duff smiles in turn.

“It’s a date.”


End file.
